Sir David Hare has premiered all of his plays in London for 30 years. So why is his latest production being seen first in York? On the tenth anniversary of rail privatisation, the playwright tells CHARLES HUTCHINSON that his new play is perfectly suited to a railway city.

OUR "greatest living political playwright" (copyright New Statesman) is turning his attention to our greatest living liability, the railways. Sir David Hare's The Permanent Way retells first-hand accounts of why and how Britain's rail network has gone off the rails in a decade of privatisation since the 1993 Railways Act.

Unlike his trilogy of State of the Nation plays, the voice this time is not his own but belongs to those "most intimately involved", including Jarvis engineering here in York.

In a coup for York Theatre Royal, this tale of a dream gone sour will be premiered in York next week by the Out Of Joint theatre company en route to the National Theatre in London.

"I think this is the first play of mine that will open on tour, outside London, for almost 30 years," Hare says.

"For 20 years everything I did opened at the National, where I just fell into a creative relationship with Peter Hall, when he was the director there, and then Richard Eyre was sympathetic to doing my plays about the state of the nation there, as he wanted the National to do work that reflected the issues of the nation."

How come York will be first this time? "The reason we're opening in York is that it's a railway town, and we felt it was right to do that as the play follows the progress of privatisation of the railways from ten years ago until today," says Hare.

He has not visited the city himself during nine months of research, nor indeed has he visited the National Railway Museum, but York did play its part in the preparations. "One of the actors came up to Jarvis in York for a day for research," Hare says.

The suggestion to do a play about the ailing railways came from Out Of Joint artistic director Max Stafford-Clark, who had formed the Joint Stock company with Hare in 1974.

"In those days we were prominent in doing work that was fact based or documentary based," recalls Hare. "Max then stopped his Joint Stock work to run the Royal Court theatre and I was at the National, and so we hadn't worked together since then until Max had this wonderful idea to do this railway play."

The Permanent Way marks the re-union of Hare and Stafford-Clark after a 25-year hiatus, but the playwright was initially cautious about the project. "At first I thought it was a bit of a nerdy subject, but then you realise the story is so shocking and it says so much about how the country has been run," Hare says.

"Nobody within the Conservatives or the Civil Service, who put the privatisation bill through in 1993, believed in it. They now say it was mad and yet they were determined to see it through and that tells you how bad the state of government was.

"Labour, who were opposed to the bill, have since back-tracked and you have to wonder why they are only now addressing the issue."

In his State of the Nation trilogy, Hare had taken a rain check on the state of the Church, the Law and the Labour Party, and subsequently he felt ready for a change of tack.

"I did feel I had done enough of those plays," he says. "They were fictional plays based on institutes in crisis: The Permanent Way is more of a documentary piece, where you had actors, a researcher and the director going out and meeting people and me being run off my feet trying to keep up with them. There's a buzz to trying to stay on your feet!

"It's still what you would call an authored piece but what is wonderful is that they have all contributed."

Part of the inspiration for this style of drama came from Hare seeing The Colour Of Justice, Richard Norton Taylor's documentary account of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry (a play that toured the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds in 1999).

"It was one of the best plays of the past five years," Hare says. "Richard Norton Taylor just arranged the material to show the level of racism across Britain. There was a play that presented the issues in two hours in a theatre and my play is doing the same."

Hare is not seeking to wave a magic wand over the railways, nor has he appointed himself judge and jury.

"I don't try to provide a solution but I think that what is required is a certain will for change, and the British public are way ahead of the Government on this, as they are on many issues this year. Why are Labour not responding to that will?" he says.

Hare says The Permanent Way has a central theme but he declines to reveal it. "I'm reluctant to talk about it, mainly because there's a lot in this play that will have people saying 'My God, I didn't know that', and so the story tells itself."

Had there been any reluctance by those being interviewed to reveal information? "By and large, people prefer to talk to playwrights than journalists as they know the playwright will look at it slightly differently and will not be naming them. We found they were very keen to get things off their chest," he says.

"However, there are a lot of things that we can't talk about in the play because we would be in danger of being in contempt and the last thing we want to do is to get in the way of any progress."

Hare has described himself as a "commentator on the ills of contemporary capitalism", and yet this socialist agit-prop playwright questions what impact a play can make politically.

"I don't think you can make a change, though when Emile Zola wrote his J'Accuse open letter it did highlight a case and changed French law, but most of us working in theatre are just trying to clear the ether," he says.

"It took us till the late-Eighties to see through the Thatcher influence. Issues require a considered response and that takes time, and only now are we seeing plays that put the Blair years in perspective because people are getting the measure of him."

Out Of Joint's world premiere of David Hare's The Permanent Way opens at York Theatre Royal, November 13 to 15. Box office: 01904 623568.

Fact file:

Name: David Hare

Occupation: British socialist playwright, screenwriter, stage and screen director

Born: 1947, Bexhill, Surrey

Age: 56

Educated: Cambridge University

First play: Slag, directed by Max Stafford-Clark at Royal Court, 1971

Significant works: Plenty; Pravda; The Secret Rapture; Skylight; Amy's View; The Blue Room; Via Dolorosa; The Breath Of Life

State of the Nation trilogy: Racing Demon (subject matter, the church); Murmuring Judges (the law); The Absence Of War (the Labour Party)

National Theatre statistics: 11 plays, 1971-1997

Broadway statistics: Nine plays

Films: As writer-director, Licking Hitler; Wetherby; Paris By Night; Strapless; Heading Home; The Secret Rapture. As writer, Saigon - Year Of The Cat; Plenty; Damage; The Hours. As director, Designated Mourner

Latest screenplay: Adapting Jonathan Franzen's novel The Corrections, a clash between East and West, in readiness for filming next year

Latest play: The Permanent Way.

Updated: 09:57 Wednesday, November 05, 2003